January 14, 2010

Tennessee Expected to Hire Duke's Cutcliffe

Update: The deal with David Cutcliffe fell through and Tennessee is expected to hire Derek Dooley of Louisiana Tech.

David Cutcliffe, who was an assistant at Tennessee from 1983-98 and 2006-07, is Tennessee's likely choice as its new coach, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Cutcliffe, 55, has spent the past two seasons at Duke, leading the Blue Devils to records of 4-8 and 5-7. Before his arrival, Duke was the worst program in a Bowl Championship Series conference for a 10-year span, with only 13 victories over Division I-A teams.

Cutcliffe was Mississippi's coach from 1998-2004, going 44-29. The Rebels played in five bowl games, winning four.

He has a reputation for developing quarterbacks, having coached Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning and Erik Ainge.

He resigned due to having triple by-pass heart surgery in March of 2005...before actually performing any duties! That means...he never got to work with Quinn. Peter Vaas was subsequently hired as the QB coach.

Yes that's true...but the record also shows that from March 'til June he never set foot on the field or film room. While he recovered from the surgery...Weis had taken over QB duties for spring practice 'til David got back on his feet.

However, the return never happened...so probably the furthest he and Quinn ever got was an introductory handshake. This is well documented on the Internet.